At Facebook, we take online piracy and copyright infringement very seriously. Rogue foreign sites that pirate American intellectual property or sell counterfeit goods pose significant problems for our economy. However, we believe the PROTECT IP Act (or PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which are currently being considered by Congress, are not the right solution to this problem, because of the collateral damage these overreaching bills would cause to the Internet.

Our Position

PROTECT IP and SOPA could create very real problems for Internet companies like ours that are a primary driver of innovation, growth, and job creation in the 21st century economy. The bills contain overly broad definitions and create a new private cause of action against companies on the basis of those expansive definitions, which could seriously hamper the innovation, growth, and investment in new companies that have been the hallmarks of the Internet. In addition, we are concerned about provisions in the bills that could chill free expression or weaken the Internet’s architecture.

Continuing the Discussion

We understand the concerns of the film and music industries, as well as other content creators and trademark owners, and we have been engaging in a constructive dialogue on the most effective ways to combat piracy. However, we must ensure that Congress does not do anything in this area that threatens the security of the Internet, hampers U.S. innovation or competitiveness, or sets harmful precedents for other governments to follow. We ask Congress not to rush this process. It’s too important not to take the time to get it right.

Reporting IP Infringement

Facebook makes it a priority to respond promptly whenever we’re made aware of illegal content on our site. We have a reporting system in place and a trained team dedicated to handling rights owner notices. We’re always working to invest in tools and resources necessary to meet the needs of both rights owners and users. For more information on how to report IP infringement, click here.

Get Involved
Learn more about the issues described above and let your voice be heard!

And today, when Google asked its users to sign a petition protesting two anti-piracy laws circulating in Congress, millions responded.

A spokeswoman for Google confirmed that 4.5 million people added their names to the company's anti-SOPA petition today.

Not too shabby.

The petition, which was available via a link from Google's homepage, states that although fighting online piracy is important, the plan of attack described in the SOPA and PIPA bills would be ineffective.

PHOTOS: Sites on strike

"There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs," the petition reads. "Too much is at stake -– please vote NO on PIPA and SOPA."

The search engine frequently delights users by toying with its homepage logo, but on Wednesday it did something it had never done before: it blocked out its logo completely.

A link below the blackout read "Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web!" and lead to a page with the petition.

Of course, Google's anti-SOPA and PIPA petition is not the only one out there on this day of mass online protest. As of this writing 1.458 million people signed a similar petition at the activist website Avaaz.org, and Fight for the Future said that between its two sites, Sopastrike.com and AmericanCensorship.org, at least 350,000 people have sent emails to representatives in the House and Senate.

A graphic put out by Google shows that before today's coordinated protests, 3 million Americans had signed various petitions against the two bills.

In other SOPA number news, a spokeswoman from the popular blogging platform WordPress, said that at last count, 25,000 WordPress blogs had joined the SOPA and PIPA protest by blacking out their blogs entirely, and another 12,500 used the "Stop Censorship" ribbon.

Today, the White House Blog reports that 103,785 people signed petitions through the We The People website asking the president to protect a free and open Internet.

Quote: Three co-sponsors of the SOPA and PIPA antipiracy bills have publicly withdrawn their support as Wikipedia and thousands of other websites blacked out their pages Wednesday to protest the legislation.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) withdrew as a co-sponsor of the Protect IP Act in the Senate, while Reps. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) said they were pulling their names from the companion House bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Opponents of the legislation, led by large Internet companies, say its broad definitions could lead to censorship of online content and force some websites to shut down.

In a posting on his Facebook page, Rubio noted that after the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed its bill last year, he has "heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government's power to impact the Internet."

PHOTOS: Sites on strike

"Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences," Rubio said in announcing he was withdrawing his support. While he's committed to stopping online piracy, Rubio called for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to back off plans to hold a key procedural vote on the bill on Tuesday.

Rubio's withdrawal will reduce the number of co-sponsors to 39. Last week, two other co-sponsors, Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), joined four other Senate Republicans in a letter to Reid also urging him delay the vote. But Grassley and Hatch have not withdrawn their support.

Terry and Quayle were among the 31 sponsors of the House legislation before they withdrew their support Tuesday.

Quayle still strongly supports the goal of the House bill to crack down on foreign websites that traffic in pirated movies, music, medicine and other goods.

"The bill could have some unintended consequences that need to be addressed," said Quayle spokesman Zach Howell. "Basically it needs more work before he can support it."

Terry said that he also had problems with the House bill in its current form and would no longer support it.

Wikipedia, Reddit and about 10,000 other websites blacked out their pages Wednesday with messages warning of the dangers of the legislation and urging people to contact their congressional representatives. Howell said Quayle's office had not seen a major increase in calls or emails Wednesday, but that the piracy bills have been the main issue in recent weeks for people contacting the office.

There has been a "manageable increase" in visits to House member websites Wednesday, said Dan Weiser, a spokesman for the House office of the chief administrative officer.

"It’s possible some users will see a short delay or slow loading of a member's web page," he said.

-- Jim Puzzanghera in Washington

This does beg the question, can occupying a park even hold a candle to the power of occupying the internets?

Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:01 pm

xGasPricesx

Joined: 23 May 2008
Posts: 1612

jakethesnake wrote:
This does beg the question, can occupying a park even hold a candle to the power of occupying the internets?

This was a very different movement than the Occupy Wall Street movement though, was it not? I mean, first off, in the SOPA/PIPA protest, there were two pieces of legislation that were being considered right now, they had a very clear target and a very clear goal. It was also legislation that effected the internet directly, and thus the protest gained the support of internet powerhouses like Google, who were probably responsible for a decent chuck of those who signed the petition or called their representatives. OWS is a lot different though, and I don't think it would thrive nearly as well on the internet as the SOPA/PIPA protests have, mainly because OWS has been using the internet since it's inception and it hasn't ever taken hold like these protests have.

I just think that there's too many differences between the two protests to say that going one route is better than other for both types.

Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:19 pm

jakethesnakeguy who cried about wrestling being real

Joined: 03 Feb 2006
Posts: 6311
Location: airstrip one

Yes, clear targets and clear goals. Something OWS seems to never be able to come up with (see page 1-40 of the OWS thread). That's my point.

Backer Marco Rubio said the Senate "should take more time to address the concerns"

Two of the bill's co-sponsors, Marco Rubio from Florida and Roy Blunt from Missouri, are among those backing away.

Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia and blog service WordPress are among the highest profile sites to block their content.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has branded the protests as "irresponsible" and a "stunt".

The MPAA, Hollywood's primary advocate in Washington and a key supporter of the legislation, is led by former Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Dodd.

Both bills focus on responding to online piracy, specifically illegal copies of films and other media.

The bills would also outlaw sites from containing information about how to access blocked sites.

The BBC's Jonny Dymond says that with Mr Rubio and Mr Blunt withdrawing their support, the Senate bill - Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) - that had looked likely to pass, now appears to be in trouble.

Mr Rubio is a rising star in the Republican party, and is often suggested as a viable vice-presidential choice for this year's Republican presidential nominee.

Bi-partisan backlash
Republicans and Democrats were among the lawmakers rowing back on Wednesday.

The US bills are designed to block access to sites containing unauthorised copyright material.

Content owners and the US government would be given the power to request court orders to shut down sites associated with piracy.

Advertisers, payment processors and internet service providers would be forbidden from doing business with infringers based overseas.

Sopa also requires search engines to remove foreign infringing sites from their results, a provision absent in Pipa.

Full explanation on Sopa and Pipa
The list of senators no longer backing Pipa includes Mr Rubio and Mr Blunt, and Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, all Republicans, as well as Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland.

In the House of Representatives, Republicans Ben Quayle of Arizona, Lee Terry of Nebraska and Dennis Ross of Florida said they were no longer supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa), joining Pennsylvania Democrat Tim Holden.

Mr Ross tweeted that he was no longer supporting Sopa, because as "a true free marketer, I want IP protected correctly".

In a Facebook posting, Mr Rubio said he and fellow Senators "heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the internet".

Mr Hatch called Pipa "not ready for prime-time" and said he would remove himself from the bill's list of sponsors.

Blackout on the web
The US news website Politico estimated that 7,000 sites were involved by early Wednesday morning.

View a gallery of protest action taken by some of the web's highest profile websites
Google did not shut down its main search but is showing solidarity by placing a black box over its logo when US-based users visit its site.

Online marketplace Craigslist asks site visitors to contact their representatives in Congress before moving on to the main site.

Visitors to Wikipedia's English-language site were greeted by a dark page with white text which said: "Imagine a world without free knowledge... The US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia."

If users tried to access its other pages via search sites, the text briefly flashed up before being replaced by the protest page. However, people were sharing workarounds to disable the redirect.

When the protest ended at 0500GMT on Thursday, Wikipedia carried the message: "Thank you for protecting Wikipedia".

WordPress's homepage displayed a video which claimed that Sopa "breaks the internet" and asked users to add their name to a petition asking Congress to stop the bill.

"The authors of the legislation don't seem to really understand how the internet works," the site's co-founder, Matt Mullenweg told the BBC.

Mojang, the developer of Minecraft, has replaced the game's website with a protest message
Other net firms that have criticised the legislation decided not to take part in the blackout.

Twitter's founder, Dick Costolo, tweeted that it would be "foolish" to take the service offline.

'Gimmick'
The moves were described as an "abuse of power" by one of the highest-profile supporters of the anti-piracy bills.

"It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information," Mr Dodd said in a statement, calling the actions taken by the high-profile websites "yet another gimmick".

In addition to the MPAA's support for the legislation, the US Chamber of Commerce said claims against the legislation had been overstated.

Rory Cellan-Jones
Technology correspondent, BBC News
Around the world, with Britain's Digital Economy Act, France's Loi Hadopi, and now America's Sopa, the story has repeated itself. The media industries claim the new laws will provide them with vital protection against the scourge of online piracy, the web community maintains that innocent victims will be harmed by blunderbuss legislation that will usher in a new era of censorship.

What we are lacking, of course, is data on their impact on illegal file-sharing or on the open internet. There is none from the UK - nearly two years after the Digital Economy Act was rushed into law, it still has not been implemented, held up by legal challenges.

Read more by Rory Cellan-Jones
"[The sponsors] announced they would roll back the provisions of these bills designed to block foreign criminal websites, striking a major conciliatory note with those who raised legitimate concerns," said Steve Tepp, chief intellectual property counsel at the chamber's Global Intellectual Property Center.

"What remains are two pieces of legislation that are narrowly tailored and commercially reasonable for taking an effective swipe at the business models of rogue sites."

The proposed legislation would allow the Department of Justice and content owners to seek court orders against any site accused of "enabling or facilitating" piracy.

Sopa also calls for search engines to remove infringing sites from their results. Pipa does not include this provision.

Google posted a blog on the subject claiming that the bills would not stop piracy.

"There are better ways to address piracy than to ask US companies to censor the internet. The foreign rogue sites are in it for the money, and we believe the best way to shut them down is to cut off their sources of funding."

The events coincided with news that the US House of Representatives plans to resume work on Sopa next month. The Senate is expected to start voting on 24 January on how to proceed on Pipa.

Even if Congress approves the bills, President Barack Obama may decide to veto them.

The White House issued a statement at the weekend saying that "we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet".

Count is up to 8 bill-backers backing down.

Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:24 am

xGasPricesx

Joined: 23 May 2008
Posts: 1612

jakethesnake wrote: Yes, clear targets and clear goals. Something OWS seems to never be able to come up with (see page 1-40 of the OWS thread). That's my point.

What I'm saying though, is that this movement might have worked on the internet, because this legislation was directly targeted at the internet. Even if OWS had clearer targets and goals, do you think they would receive as much bipartisan support across the internet like we've seen with the SOPA/PIPA protests? Do you think they would receive the full on backing of the internet powerhouses like Google and Wikipedia? The same internet powerhouses, who no doubt, were responsible for a lot of the support garnered for the protest today. I mean, I suppose it is possible, maybe we'd have to know what those targets and goals were, but I just think there's a time and a place for both methods.

Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:36 am

jakethesnakeguy who cried about wrestling being real

Joined: 03 Feb 2006
Posts: 6311
Location: airstrip one

I understand what you're saying. I just think standing (camping?) around waiting for something to happen, and maybe talking about it a little bit, is a really poor use of time and skills. Discourse can be handled on the internet. I have yet to figure out what the whole park thing is accomplishing. The idea: good. The execution: lacking. Funny thing, the OWS movement seems to be moving more towards social media networks and websites, and away from parks.

Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:55 am

xGasPricesx

Joined: 23 May 2008
Posts: 1612

Do you think that with clear goals, let's say, targeting a certain piece of legislation that deregulated the financial industry in some way; that OWS could achieve anywhere near the same internet support that the SOPA/PIPA protests did today?

Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:13 am

Bicycle

Joined: 17 Nov 2008
Posts: 413

entertainment industry= bad
tech industry= good

I totally get it. Google is the benevolent superhero of the information age trying to save us all from the man. This has everything to do with human rights and nothing at all to do with ad revenue generated from pirate sites

Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:57 am

poopsnack

Joined: 15 Jan 2004
Posts: 2852
Location: Mid West

People are listening to this SOPA protesting. So for now, the bill will die. I bet this legislation will return bundled with something else and slip through in the future. Maybe bundle it with a terrorism topic. "well, these are online terrorists, after all".
(I'm bitter.)

Thu Jan 19, 2012 6:29 am

Bicycle

Joined: 17 Nov 2008
Posts: 413

People aren't listening to anything. They're giving in to emotional appeals and paranoia without examining the issues. These bills aren't about censorship. They're about cutting pirate sites off from their source of income which is advertising. Google makes a mint off of advertising. A generous portion of that comes from piracy sites. Google stands to lose alot of money Should these bills pass so they are going with the tried and true argument that fighting piracy is an affront to free speech and making exaggerative claims about what these bills can and cant do

Thu Jan 19, 2012 6:45 am

empti

Joined: 24 May 2005
Posts: 132
Location: everywhere you want to be

Bicycle wrote: People aren't listening to anything. They're giving in to emotional appeals and paranoia without examining the issues. These bills aren't about censorship. They're about cutting pirate sites off from their source of income which is advertising. Google makes a mint off of advertising. A generous portion of that comes from piracy sites. Google stands to lose alot of money Should these bills pass so they are going with the tried and true argument that fighting piracy is an affront to free speech and making exaggerative claims about what these bills can and cant do

The claims of potential censorship are far from exaggeration. It seems the "techy" part(s) of the bill were hastily written by someone's aid somewhere along the line and now these dipshits in congress are left fumbling over their own words trying to explain how a DNS blacklist works when we all know good well they don't know, else they wouldn't be trying to allow such a thing.

Anyone savvy enough to pirate anything off the internet will figure out, in time, that with this proposed DNS blacklist all it takes is to simply type in the website's IP address to get around it, yet those not in the know will be seemingly denied access to whatever site made the list, not knowing the work around(and, no, it won't just be pirate file share sites that get blacklisted.) Pirates still prevail and get what they want and they've now screwed potentially millions of regular internet users out of content.

Second, the burden of proof that you're not "sharing" copy written material is now placed upon the users themselves and those offering the services enabling the sharing; youtube, facebook, twitter, etc. So even if, say, it costs a mere 5cents to police each user's share, for a service that has 100million users you're essentially going to run them into the ground. Ad revenue be damned, you ain't making up for that loss. Not to mention you've now got to police all the comments for the share which may contain copywritten material themselves. This not only stifles the ability of already functional, staple services on the internet from being able to function as they have but will keep down any new upstarts from even trying due to basically banning innovation on the internet out of (financial) fear, because now they're in charge of consuming all cost to police their users, so even if they do start something new, regular interneters will be disallowed from contributing simply because they're now a liability.

TL;DR: The way the bill is written makes it more than apparent that those who wrote it, and those who support it have little to no understanding as to how the internet works, nor the affects of what such a generalized blanket bill could have on the internet as a whole, along with anyone who uses it.
Or maybe they do, and thats the point. Which is why people are getting up in arms.

Some lawmakers are rethinking their support of controversial anti-piracy bills that led to some websites shutting down in protest.

The protest was in response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill, a piece of proposed legislation that is working its way through Congress. A Senate committee approved a similar bill in May called the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which is now pending before the full Senate.

The protest seemed to change the minds of lawmakers, including those that had strongly backed the bills in the past.

"We can find a solution that will protect lawful content. But this bill is flawed & that's why I'm withdrawing my support. #SOPA #PIPA," Republican Sen. Roy Blunt wrote on his official Twitter page.

"I have decided to withdraw my support for the Protect IP Act. Furthermore, I encourage Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor. Instead, we should take more time to address the concerns raised by all sides, and come up with new legislation that addresses Internet piracy while protecting free and open access to the Internet," Rubio wrote on a Facebook post.

Rep Lee Terry (R-Neb.), an original co-sponsor of SOPA, also said he had changed his view.

"Thank you for your concern about #SOPA. I have asked to have my name removed from the bill. However, the economic impact of IP theft is real and a solution is needed," Terry wrote on Facebook.

Wikipedia, one of the websites that shut down on Wednesday, returned Thursday with the message: "Thank you for protecting Wikipedia. We're not done yet."

Clicking on that message takes a Wikipedia viewer to a thank you letter and instructions on how to continue fighting against anti-piracy bills that critics say could amount to censorship.

"Your voice was loud and strong," the message said. "Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet." (Why Wikipedia went down at midnight)

On Wednesday, instead of the usual encyclopedia articles, visitors to Wikipedia's English-language site were greeted by a message about the decision to black out its Web page for an entire day. However, users were able to access its mobile site on some smartphones.

Boing Boing, a blog that took part in Wednesday's online protest but returned on Thursday, said the U.S. Senate was considering legislation that would "certainly kill us forever. The legislation ... would put us in legal jeopardy if we linked to a site anywhere online that had any links to copyright infringement."

"In the past, the media industry has often gone after particular infringers -- people who have downloaded stuff off the Internet and sharing it. And now they're going after websites that link to these things," Rob Beschizza, Boing Boing's managing editor, said Wednesday. "The bill is supposed to let copyright holders get court orders against them, and there's all sorts of various measures for getting sites blacklisted or blocked.

"The problem is that the measures are so wide-ranging and so open to abuse that we're worried that sites like ours could be brought down by frivolous claims," he said.

While not blacking out its home page, search giant Google joined the cause by covering its famous logo with a black rectangle and urging visitors, "Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web!"

SOPA's supporters -- including CNN's parent company, Time Warner, and groups such as the MPAA -- say that online piracy leads to U.S. job losses because it deprives content creators of income.

The bill's supporters dismiss accusations of censorship, saying the legislation is meant to revamp a broken system that doesn't adequately prevent criminal behavior.

But SOPA critics say the bill's backers don't understand the Internet's architecture, and therefore don't appreciate the implications of the legislation they're considering.

The controversy over SOPA and PIPA has turned into an all-out war between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Media companies have united in favor of the bills, while tech's power players are throwing their might into opposing them. (Hundreds turn out for SOPA protest in New York)

"Both SOPA and PIPA are threats not just to the U.S. economy, and not just to all the jobs that this tech sector creates, but if they had existed, Steve Huffman and I could have never founded Reddit," said Alexis Ohanian, who co-founded the site. Millions visit Reddit to submit interesting links from websites, discuss them and vote on them, he said, calling it "sort of a democratic front page of the web." Reddit also went dark Wednesday morning and was back Thursday.

One member of Congress, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, who opposes the bills, said the unprecedented blackouts had "turned the tide against a backroom lobbying effort by interests that aren't used to being told no."

Issa is pushing for consideration of his own plan, the OPEN Act, addressing the matter.

Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:37 am

jakethesnakeguy who cried about wrestling being real

Joined: 03 Feb 2006
Posts: 6311
Location: airstrip one

No one is arguing FOR internet piracy (theft).

People are arguing that this bill is the worst possible way imaginable to deal with it.

Politicians will do whatever either a) lines their pockets or b) gets them re-elected.

They are also stupid as hell when it comes to things other than politics. In some cases, it may be that some these old white dudes (OWDs) genuinely have no idea what this bill does other than "stop pirates".

Quote: Anonymous Goes on Megaupload Revenge Spree: DoJ, RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music All Offline
Anonymous has sure been quiet lately, but today's federal bust of Megaupload riled 'em up good: a retaliatory strike against DoJ.gov (and plenty of other foes) leaving them completely dead.
DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com is reporting the department's site as universally nuked, and an Anonymous-affiliated Twitter account is boasting success. This is almost certainly the result of a quickly-assembled DDoS attack—and easily the widest in scope and ferocity we've seen in some time. If you had any doubts Anonymous is still a hacker wrecking ball, doubt no more.

The combination of the hacking nebula's SOPA animosity—they've been a vocal opponent of the bill since its inception—combined with today's sudden Megaupload news has made the group bubble over: hundreds upon hundreds of Anon operatives are in a plotting frenzy, chatting about which site will go down next. In Anon's eyes, the government and media interests are responsible for the undue destruction of Megaupload (and the arrest of four of its operators), so it'll be exactly those entities that're feeling the pain right now. Pretty much every company that makes movies, TV, or music, along with the entirety of the federal government, is in Anonymous' crosshairs.

Update: Anonymous says they've also knocked off the RIAA's site—looks down for us at the moment as well.

Update 2: Universal Music Group has also fallen off an e-cliff.

Update 3: Goodbye for now, MPAA.org.

Update 4: Affected sites are bouncing in and out of life, and are at the very least super slow to load. Anon agents are currently trying to coordinate their DDoS attacks in the same direction via IRC.

Update 5: The US Copyright Office joins the list.

Update 6: This Anon sums up the mood in their "official" chat room at the moment:

Danzu: STOP EVERYTHING, who are we DoSing right now?

Update 7: Russian news service RT claims this is the largest coordinated attack in Anonymous' history—over 5,600 DDoS zealots blasting at once.